


The strength of the powerless

by letterando



Category: House M.D., Jessica Jones (TV)
Genre: 13 - Cameo, Chris Taub - Cameo, Draco Malfoy - Cameo, Eric Foreman - Cameo, Greg House/James Wilson - Established Relationship, Kilgrave - Mention, Lawrence Kutner - Cameo, Lisa Cuddy - Cameo, Malcom Ducasse - Cameo, Multi, Peter Parker - Cameo, Protective House, Tony Stark - Cameo, Will Halstead - Mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-18 23:35:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13110873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letterando/pseuds/letterando
Summary: When House first met Jessica Jones in the clinic he didn't believe that her name was her actual name.He didn't know what kind of viruses could affect powered individuals.He didn't know what Patricia Walker's laughter sounded like.And he sure as hell couldn't have imagined what a fight to the last word between Cuddy and Stark would have sounded like.But there she was, and here we are.





	The strength of the powerless

**Author's Note:**

> This is a completed work, I've got 7 chapters. Posting this to make myself speed up the editing process.
> 
> Mentions of characters from other fandoms reflect my current WIPs but don't expect to see them anytime soon.
> 
> This fic was born from the three simple facts: I miss the old school House, I recently re-read Ignaz Wisdom's "A Modest Proposal" and I've just learned that Jessica Jones is Netflix's most popular Marvel show.
> 
> For the sake of the plot let’s pretend that all House MD characters work in a hospital in New York. Suspend your disbelief please!
> 
> I haven't heard from beta-readers on LJ or Tumblr so this is unbetaed.

# Visit 1: Powered

 

 

 

House’s day had begun well enough.

The crossroad on the 45th had been underpopulated, he had avoided the haunting stare of the smarmy half-French nurse that manned the reception on alternate days, and Wilson hadn’t seemed like he had minded the kick that House inadvertently gave him in the small hours of the morning in bed.

All in all, House was feeling remarkably at peace with the world when he limped in the clinic, which was to say that he only half glared at sleepy Dr. Javier, and only sneered at two nurses gushing about Christmas songs.

Halloween had been just around the corner.

What the hell.

House limped in the room of his appointment and found a black-haired woman, clad in black leather jacket and dark dirty jeans, inspecting God-knew-what on the patient’s bed, giving the door her back.

House’s initial thought was that his day had just turned bad. A careless tourist? A drug addict? A rape victim? If House had to describe the inner workings of the female reproductive organs he was going to have the half-French bastard come in and do it for him because he absolutely refused.

But the woman turned around, and House’s mind jolted awake in excitement.

Multiple severe concussions and slashes.

Likely internal micro-fractures.

Alcoholism.

Depression.

Insomnia.

Hyper-awareness. PTSD?

The multiple concussions were the most interesting. Apart from the visible cuts and bruises on the woman’s face and neck, from the angle of her shoulders, the way she held her arm to herself, and the way she leaned on one leg, it seemed as if she had collided with a wall. Or two. Violently and _repeatedly_.

House quickly limped to the doctor’s chair and sat down in a sort of analytic trance, staring at the woman as she sat on the patient’s bed.

She looked sleepy, pissed, bored and hurting, all at the same time.

The extent of the bruises and the woman’s relative ease of breath, not to mention her state of consciousness, immediately led House to think about military trained individuals. House recalled the press conference about Black Widow revealing herself to the world, and the online article of a material that looked remarkably like skin and that had ruffled the feathers of the CIA, the FBI, and of the National Defense for its espionage potential.

Was the woman a special agent or a SHIELD operative?

House studied the woman’s face, her expression, her eyes. He couldn’t see the borders of colored lenses, so she wasn’t masking her true eye color. Next, he smelled the room. Dust, wet concrete, soot, mold and alcohol. That didn’t help much since it was the usual eau de perfume of most city-based homeless people.

Well, thought House, the woman’s bad arm was not going to disinfect and bandage itself any time soon.

“Clothes off,” he murmured absent-mindedly as he hooked the supply cabinet to his cane and rolled it close to his chair.

“Very smooth doctor,” retorted the woman with a husky tone and a supremely bored expression, which immensely pleased House. He was rather fond of snarky spitfire women.

As House set to work he catalogued the woman’s reactions, including her obviously fake name on the filled form (‘Jessica Jones,’ honestly?).

She asked worriedly about infections, so she had wits with her. She didn’t ask House what he was doing and with what, and she was conducting a very poor attempt at keeping her bruised face away from him.

“Stop that, you won’t need stitches,” said House as he wetted another piece of cotton with disinfectant to start on her face. It put her at peace immediately.

Her shoulders sag in relaxation and her hands stopped twitching on her thighs.

Her fear could mean two things. It indicated either fear of invasive medicine, which could be traced back to a military or operative background, or the necessity to hide her injuries from somebody else. 

“Now take off your pants,” commented House absent-mindedly once he finished cleaning the woman’s face.

But this time, she didn’t surprise him and acquiesced, this time she went with the screen wright and scoffed.

“Wha-Dude, no.”

“Dude, yes. I need to confirm by touch if any bone in your hip and low lumbar region are fractured before I book you a tour to the x-ray-“

“Woah, I don’t need x-rays.”

“That’s for me to attest.”

“I mean that I’m fine. Work done. Bye bye, have a nice day,” said the woman as she started to put on her shirt, trying not grimace when the fabric hit the end of the area of her arm that was not covered in bandages.

“Look, I don’t care if you’re a soldier, a black ops, a superhero or a supervillain, that’s somebody else’s headache, but I’m not going to sign you the prescriptions for the fun pills unless you let me finish with you. You look at the end of the adrenaline rush, you won’t be able to make it past the beady eyes of that damn French that holds fort at reception without fainting from the pain. I know a couple of things about that. Not pretty. And then good fucking luck with the authorities.”

House didn’t know what compelled him to blurt out the fainting from the pain stuff. He blamed it on the fact that there could be an actual black ops in his clinic room and he didn’t want to relinquish her to that tiny bastard of Dr. Gomez.

In reply, the woman stared at him, gaping a bit, stretching the shirt’s sleeve as her bad arm was still at an awkward angle. The sting of the disinfectant was likely strong as the woman kept her muscles tense, her arm raised, and House deduced that the woman was used to harm herself regularly in many tiny different ways, it was more and more obvious as she stubbornly tried to fit her aching arm into the sleeve.

Finally, the woman let the shirt fall over her bad arm with an exhausted sigh and wordlessly set to work to remove her jeans.

House zeroed in on her skin as inch after inch became visible, worried that she was going to cover herself up and try to leave at any moment. Calling security on her would be extremely embarrassing for both of them and the paperwork was a pain in the ass.

House was right.

As usual.

Repeated collisions on a large and hard surface.

He snapped a new pair of gloves on and set to work.

.

.

.

It was only after a few minutes of prodding and poking that he noticed how the woman was barely making any sound. She was gripping the medical bed’s edges so tightly that her hands were completely white, her eyes were slightly unfocused.

House estimated that she had not slept for at least 24 hours, nor had she eaten in the past 12 hours.

“Nothing’s broken, but your hip may be bruised. X-ray to be sure and a couple of fun pills. You can dress yourself now. Prognosis is a couple of weeks, less if you have a healing factor. I recommend a couple of fun pills morning and evening, lots of greasy food and lots of sleep. Do you plan on having sex in the next 48 hours?”

House waited for the response for a few seconds before looking up from the form he was filling.

The woman was looking at him with a tired ‘what the fuck’ expression. She was lazily trying to tug up the hem of her jeans over the curve of her hip with her good hand.

“What if I say yes?”

“I’d say no.”

The black-haired replied with a heavy eye roll and another exasperated sigh.

“You’re no fun, doc.”

“And for that I’m giving you the next best fun fills. I need your actual name for booking the x-ray or Ang is going to bitch at me during lunch break.”

Another pause.

House looked up again.

The woman had managed to tug her jeans all the way up and was buttoning herself one-handed, not without difficulty, a deep frown and a slightly endearing pout.

She shifted her eyes to the form that she had filled for admittance, deepening her scowl.

“That’s my actual name.”

“Jessica Jones?”

“Yeah,” she shrugged.

“Condolences. The x-ray department is-“

“Don’t need that,” said Jones. When House looked at her this time she was fighting and valiantly winning a battle against her shirt’s sleeve.

“Because of your powers?”

“How do you even know that? Wait, you know what? Never mind,” sighed Jones, astutely performing a tactical retreat when facing her leather jacket, choosing to sling it over her good shoulder instead.

“No, not because of any powers. My friend will want me to get rayed at a private clinic or whatever.”

Jones was a fairly good liar, House observed. Her tells were few and well-hidden, but not impossible to spot for House.

“Nice try but there’s room for improvement. Here are your pills and your x-ray, whether you go or not is not my problem but know this: will this friend of yours be happy when you break your whole hip the next time you get slammed into walls?”

Massaging his leg, House relished the dark, angry scowl on Jones’s face for a few moments before tapping his cane on the floor.

“Visit’s done, now get out of here. Chop chop.”

Jones shook her head, sighing again in exasperation, snatched her receipts and walked out.

House shook his head in twin exasperation at the whole lot of powered people.

Idiots.

.

.

.

 

# Visit 2: Hangover

 

.

.

.

House nursed his cup of tea with fierce protectiveness as he limped into the clinic.

Sadly, House’s protectiveness stemmed more from the fact that the hospital’s vending machine’s tea was scalding hot against his cold hands and not because he gave any particular fucks to whatever was inside the pleasantly hot mug in his hand.

He paused for a moment, feeling a cramp coming, keeping his cup close to his body so that blind by-passers wouldn’t knock it off his hand, and tried not to groan in pain as his calf quivered in a spasm and then, slowly, stubbornly, the agony settled down a bit.

He glared back at a nurse (with amazingly done hair, he did give her that) who was glaring at him for blocking the corridor, and continued on.

Morning fucks were good and all and Wilson had already apologized a hundred times for having accidentally elbowed him in the thigh, but House couldn’t help the stormy dark cloud that had settled over his mood already.

Morosely, he doused his cup of muddled water in a corner plant before quickly ditching the cup in the reception’s bin. Nurse Azizah nodded her head in silent compliment even if her eyes were scanning the entry forms and House finally made his way into the room to attend to his first patient of the day.

.

.

.

Jessica Jones laid on the bed, snoring not-so-softly.

At first, House thought that the powered woman had snuck in last night after a severe injury, probably because the hospital was near to the place where she’s got hurt.

She wasn’t homeless, that had been clear since House first looked at her, but her clothes had been dirty, second-hand and cheap, rumpled and uncared for, which made House think about a rocky living situation.

Now, with Jones’ dirty figure laying limply on the thin, uncomfortable bed, out like a light, House was almost sure that the woman was going through her own issues back where she lived.

House approached her, curious. Her hair had not been washed for 4 or 5 days, there were dust and small pieces of soot in it.

Jones’ pale forehead was slightly furrowed in discomfort, her eyes were framed by bags that were even bigger than the first time House had seen her, a couple of weeks before, and her lips were in severe need of a lip balm against the unforgiving New York winter cold.

Jones’ complexion didn’t look feverish or excessively pale, though.

House took in the rest of her appearance.

Jones’ hands were mostly covered by her semi-fingerless gloves, so her nails were visible and they were covered in dark, dried soot.

Her jeans were dusty and half covered in soot. She had stumbled several times, fell over to the side, then to her knees.

House checked her hands again. The palms of her gloves were dirty too, so yep, fell down. Possible concussion?

Jones’ boots were not abnormally dirty, just normal New York city downtown dirty. House didn’t see any dry dust that accumulated in abandoned houses or warehouses. Maybe she had been attacked in the streets.

It was just when House crossed the remaining distance to the chair that two things happened.

Jones stirred up, House noticed the strong pang of alcohol on her, and he also noticed that the entry form for the first patient of the day was perched on the tool cabinet.

Jones’ name was on the norm. She scribbled an unintelligible line on the cause for her admittance.

So Jones didn’t sneak in the night before after an ambush or a fight.

Option number one: maybe somebody forced her to drink so much that she sought help?

Option number two: she drunk herself into a nearly comatose state all night and wandered in the hospital in a daze.

Option number three: she might have accidentally picked up a roofie and was suffering from counter-effects.

House watched Jones carefully as she turned her head around, not recognizing the room she was in and not recognizing House.

She slowly, groggily sat up with a drawn-out groan of pain and scratched her dirty hair unconcerned about spreading the soot further.

When she swayed, House was ready to shout for a nurse, as he didn’t have the strength to push himself out of the chair, limp to the corner of the room to retrieve the bin and have her retch there safely. That day just wasn’t for sudden movements.

But Jones only swayed forward and backwards once, twice, and stopped.

She kept her eyes closed, clutching the edge of the bed like a lifeline, until she finally sneaked a peek through her eyelashes again.

Her eyes focused on the world around her, taking it in slowly.

When she looked at House, she recognized him and immediately groaned again, her hand going to her forehead, massaging it.

“Fuck,” she murmured.

Option number two?

“Did you drink your weight in alcohol and almost got yourself into a coma or did you go around being a goth super-hero and drank a few hapless rape victims’ roofies?”

“Ugh…” replied Jones helpfully at first. “Non’ o’ your fuckin’ b’iness.”

Yeah, definitely option number two.

Suddenly, all traces of alarm (and a vague, thin shadow of what might have been worry) disappeared from House’s mind.

“Oh, so the mighty has fallen,” he murmured absent-mindedly.

He pushed himself up with a barely suppressed groan before slamming his cane to the metal railing of the bed where Jones sat, making her jump up and immediately groan in pain.

“Get out,” he snapped as the black-haired woman clutched her head in pain.

“I don’t have the patience to deal with people who have actual medical concerns, let alone with super-powered women drowning their liver in cheap booze. Go home, take a shower, eat, sleep and come back when your body temperature runs hotter than noon in Florida in summer or something like that.”

For all his intent of towering authoritatively over Jones during his outburst, House’s leg gave him the middle finger and a painful spasm wrecked him as he physically fought the whimper of pain that threatened to erupt from the back of his throat.

The world was blurry at the edges as House’s body became fuzzy with pain. He thought he saw Jones’ hands outstretched towards him, but he stumbled back on the chair with the combined help of gravity and some unknown benevolent deity.

When he came to, House conceded himself a few moments to mentally hurl expletives at his leg and he tentatively reached for his knee to prod the joint, afraid that it would spark another burst of pain.

When nothing happened, he tightened his hand over his thigh and thought ‘fuck my life.’

Without risking a glance upwards as House didn’t have time nor fucks to give to Jones’ pity, he popped out the Vicodin and swallowed a pill, hoping that it would act quickly.

An interminable minute passed before House could take a breath without feeling it reverberating into his leg. He resolutely pushed out of his mind the sensation of a thousand needles pricking his skin from the inside and looked at Jones again.

She was staring, obviously.

But she wasn’t staring at him like all people stared at him, no.

(Well, she couldn’t stare properly even if she could, since she had only one eye open, the other was still scrunched into a thin wrinkle on the left side of her face. The combination of sun and natural light was still too much for her hangover.)

Jones was staring at House like she was trying to figure something out, which unsettled him deeply. There wasn’t pity in her look, it was something House couldn’t deduce, and it made him nervous.

“Well?” he snapped. He grabbed her entry form, tore the sheet of paper from the binder, and thrusted it into her right hand, limp at her side.

“Out you go,” he murmured, already tired, nodding to the door.

Clutching her head with her free hand, groaning and moaning in pain and trying to blindly navigate the room, out Jones went.

.

.

.

# Visit 3: Jones and Walker

.

.

.

When House opened the door of the clinic’s room, Jones was standing so close to it that House stopped in his tracks abruptly.

Her expression was the epitome of concern and nervousness, but before House could say anything (like telling Jones that he wasn’t dealing with another hangover again), Jones shifted and House could notice that somebody was already sitting on the patient’s bed.

The patient was a gorgeous woman. Her heart-shaped face was framed by a thick curtain of slightly-colored blond hair, the kind of color that ex-natural blondes used to keep their hair as light as it was in their infancy and adolescence.

Her complexion, the reddish hue on her cheeks and her focused eyes spoke of overall health. Her clothes and posture spoke of wealth and a strict education.

If House ignored the bruises for a moment, the two women were so strikingly different from one another that House knew, he was sure, that many people had wondered what on earth could possibly connect them.

House wondered this too, until he took a step towards the blonde and Jones shifted to place herself fully in his path. There was clear protectiveness in Jones’ troubled scowl, in her closed-off body language.

Her closed fists shook lightly for a few seconds before crossed her arms in a poor attempt to hide them. Her jaw was rigid and her expression, her eyes, gave off a clear warning not to go further.

House wanted nothing more than poke that powered, troubled woman to see what her reaction would be, but he was even more curious to see what kind of woman Jones was so protective of.

From the blonde woman’s serene expression, at least in the short look that House had got, and from Jones’ demeanor, it was easy to deduce the context of the visit. Either the other woman needed medical care and had dragged Jones to the hospital against her will, or the woman was badly injured and Jones dragged her to the clinic out of sheer protectiveness

Either scenario denoted a power imbalance in favor of the blonde. Were they ex-lovers? Long-time friends? Did the blond have dirt on Jones or some kind of power?

House’s appetite for knowledge had already been wetted by the mystery that was Jones’ powered constitution, and now even more questions presented themselves to him. He felt antsy with curiosity, his fingers started to tap a frenzy rhythm on his cane. But Jones’ dark expression suggested him to proceed with caution. He would give it a try. Just this once.

“Jones,” he greeted with a nod, choking back a scathing ironic compliment about smelling coffee on her instead of alcohol.

Something in House’s expression or demeanor must have appealed to Jones’ dark mood, because she nodded and relaxed minutely.

“Doctor,” she drawled in reply, stepping away so House could have a free path to his appointed chair.

“Doctor, Patricia Walker. Trish, this is the doctor I told you about.”

“Only good things, I’m sure,” he quipped, limping swiftly to the chair.

The blonde – Walker – chuckled darkly at the remark as House lazily inspected the entry form she had filled. ‘Minor bruises,’ huh.

“Jess said you’re ‘sort of’ good, which translates into ‘really good’ in standard English.”

“Oh I’m sure she said nothing of the sort.” “I didn’t say that.”

He and Jones spoke at the same time and Walker chuckled more.

She was even more beautiful when she smiled and laughed, and she hid her grimaces of pain very well.

House barely registered Jones shifting closer to Walker as he inspected her.

Minor bruises and cuts on her cheekbones, ears and jaw, more severe on the left side of her face. A near-miss punch, or a heavy backhand. Big hands, ringed fingers, multiple set of hands. Given the angle and Walker’s height, either her opponent had been sloppy, or she had ducked successfully.

Due to the extreme attentiveness with which Walker was inspecting his every move, House didn’t leave very good reflexes or training out of the table.

Walker’s manicured hands were bruised, her knuckles needed cleaning and House guessed that were skin residues under the woman’s nails.

As House set to work on Walker’s hands, he took account of the possible damage covered by Walker’s clothes. Her breathing pattern suggested either a hard impact against the right side of her ribcage, and her shifting legs indicated a hit on her left low hip or low back and prolonged exertion to her lower body. Kicking and running, most likely.

The thought that Walker had powers like Jones’ incredible resiliency to harsh impacts fled House’s mind the moment he saw Jones’ warning expression when he picked up a new piece of disinfected cotton.

Also, from the way Walker shifted uneasily in front of him, it was clear that the bruises and cuts on her hands and face were the only ones that the woman had revealed to her companion.

Definitely ex-lovers then.

House went through his hypothesis again. If Walker wasn’t powered, he needed to check her ribcage and right knee, the angle at which she was letting her arms rest was wacky, too. But if the assault had been sexual, House didn’t want to risk getting thrown out of the window for having triggered Jones’ woman.

“Is getting assaulted a regular occurrence for you, Walker?”

“What… No, of course not. It was just a random mugger, hardly any cause to disturb you doctor. And ‘Trish’ is fine.”

House didn’t care about the string of lies he was hearing, as usual. The series of expressions that passed on the woman’s face said more than enough. The assaulters were several, and it was no accident. House confirmed his second hypothesis, which confirmed Jones’ presence: Walker didn’t want to be in the hospital, but Jones dragged her all the way to the clinic’s room and made sure that her friend got checked.

If House hadn’t deduced that the two women had been ex-lovers before, he would have deduced it now. From the nervous sneaks that Walker kept throwing at Jones and vice-versa, it was actually painfully obvious.

“Tell me how the mugging went down,” said House, gently raising the blonde’s arm to gauge its movements.

He fought the urge to push the sleeve back and just take a look at the rest of the bruises for himself, but he hoped to realize enough from the way Walker was going to wince. If the attackers had been plural as House suspected, she was going to wince a lot.

As he worked, Walker smoothly related a by-the-book New York mugging.

“I was walking back from a quick grocery run – a man stepped out from the dark – tried to fight, silly me – ran back home at first opportunity.”

House tuned out the narrative, more intent on assessing the extent of the damage, but with Walker’s clothes in the way, it was like asking Cuddy to be meek and compliant. It belonged to the realm of miracles and fantasies.

Due to the charged, tense air of between the two women, House thought about breaching the subject smoothly.

“If you take off your shirt I can inspect th- any other injuries.” Bravo to me, thought House. Smooth as all fucks.

“Oh, it’s fine doctor. There aren’t any others bruises, I already checked myself.”

And there House was reminded why he didn’t tip-toe around patients. Impudent, ungrateful assholes, the whole lot of them.

House stared at the blinding smile of the gorgeous, tired blonde woman in front of him. He tried to convey ‘don’t fuck with me I know what you’re hiding,’ but Walker seemed dead-bent in making his life and hers considerably harder than its current sorry state.

Walker seemed so unperturbed that for a moment House doubted his suppositions.

Maybe Walker had a sort of power that let her heal faster than usual? That was a thing now was it? What with World War Two frozen heroes being de-frozen and aliens being spat out of portals in the sky and whatever shit New York decided to surprise its inhabitants with that week.

So House turned around and scrutinized Jones instead.

Her gaze restlessly drifted back and forth between him and Walker, as if she was trying to figure something out. But most of all, House saw the bone-deep, blood-curling worry for the blonde woman, who was instead happily smiling and dismissing her injuries.

As House stared at Jones, the woman raised an irreverent eyebrow at him, scoffing, as if to say ‘what the fuck are you doing, wasting time watching me, just cure the thing already.’

The picture became even clearer to House.

He imagined Jones seeing the bruises and immediately demanding to know what happened with that scowl of hers. Walker must have shrugged off her concern at first, replaying the spiel of the mugging. Jones must have had insisted, complications, ‘just a quick visit.’

Walker didn’t seem to be immune to the pout that House had seen on Jones the day of the hangover. So Walker begrudgingly accepted to see a doctor, and now thought that she could trick House too.

Good fucking luck with that.

Since Walker’s breath wasn’t ragged, House didn’t think that the blonde had taken life-threatening hits, but complications could arise out of nothing, let alone from a hit to the abdomen. This was especially true for women.

There was also still the issue of super-human powers. Maybe, since Jones was powered, she considered everybody else puny frail things. That would make Walker a simple human, and the bruises that Walker hid were possibly less worrying than House had deduced.

Or Walker had some sort of power, but Jones didn’t know. Walker could have had the same super resiliency as Jones, maybe she was already on her way to recover from a near-nuclear blast or whatever superheroes got up to those days.

In any case, House’s mind was swimming with possibilities and his leg started to hurt.

He quickly popped in a pill and ignored Walker’s badly concealed staring.

“Jones, out.”

House loudly slid the cabinet to the side to reach a stethoscope inside a drawer. When he looked back to his patient he couldn’t fight back a sigh of exasperation, since of course Jones hadn’t budged an inch. Why people never listened to him. Idiots.

He didn’t even need to look at her face, he was sure that she was looking at him like he was crazy, like any other patient did. Whatever.

“I said out.”

“Um, doctor House… I don’t need-“

“It’s my prerogative to do a thorough check-up. Why are you still standing there?” he asked, turning to look at Jones fully this time.

She wasn’t looking at him like he had something rotten in the head though.

She still sported that overly-worried, constipated look, shifting between House and Walker. Her hands clenched and unclenched on her hips, her legs swayed minutely with her anxiety. It made House jittery just by looking at her.

“If you’re constipated the nurse’s bathroom is down the corridor on the left, before the vending machines. Make sure to use all their toilet paper, they love it when I do that, especially that blond bastard” provided House helpfully because he was a doctor and he swore somewhere that he was going to help people. Or supposedly he ought to have sworn something like that at some point. What-ever.

Jones rolled his eyes at him and finally, finally dragged her jittery self out of the door.

“Alright. Doctor, look. I know I’ve been mugged but  I-“

“Unless you have a powered healing factor or skin of steel or what have you you’re going to take off your clothes and let me inspect the full extent of your injuries in peace.”

“There are no other injuries to inspect, doctor.”

The gall of that woman. House kind of admired the resolution with which she dismissed her injuries. With how she held herself, they must have hurt.

“Hematomas on at least three spots on your abdomen, hip and arm. Possibly bruised ribs. Depending on the strength of the kicks you may have peed irregularly or bloodily, or your cycle may have arrived early with extra strong cramps, but that’s for a colleague of mine to inspect. I’m just going to determine whether I need to book you an x-ray, a trip to a gynecologist, slather you in salves, wrap up your ribs, and hook you up to some fun pills.”

Finally another small miracle made Walker slowly duck her head until she stared at the floor, biting her lip in consideration.

“Or I can tell Jones that she should check under your blouse for herself. If she doesn’t find out first by other means. Bruised ribs make banging very painful for at least a couple of weeks.”

“Oh, we’re not- Um, we are…”

“Fascinating. You can keep on trying to stammer your way out of that while you take your clothes off.”

Walker finally exhaled in exasperation and ranked up her pullover.

Obliviously still crushing on one another then. That was even worse that ex-lovers. Fucking idiots.

.

.

.

Walker shuffled the x-ray form and the receipts of her fun pills into a semi-transparent envelope that House had to fish out from…he already forgot whatever drawer he fished it out of, but unless Jones’ eyes had powered vision or something, she wasn’t going to be able to glean the extent of Walker’s injuries as Walker herself had insisted.

House stared at the blonde woman as she huffed and puffed and adjusted her clothes neatly up to near perfection as she had been instructed to do so since birth. Very strict education.

Her gestures made House think that Walker was an exceptionally strong woman.

As she had recounted, she’d taken five drunk scumbags who were about to violate a down syndrome teen, alone, with the aid of only a purse and the results of her self-defense training.

Walker’s well-defined muscles spoke of a good personal trainer and a diligent exercise regime, but House was still impressed that the woman had resisted so many hits all on her own and was smiling and making excuses to cover her pain.

Her injuries weren’t worse because, as Walker had recounted, a woman with a dangerously over-powered Taser rescued her from multiple concussions and broken bones. It still did nothing to lessen the admirable good reflexes that Walker had ingrained in her body with nothing but stubbornness and training.

He refrained himself from saying so though, since Walker _was_ rescued in the end, and she _did_ sustain her part of injuries.

And while Walker was a mere human, her wanna-be smoocher certainly wasn’t, and House didn’t want to become minced meat, lest it reached Jones’ ear that he had something to do with convincing Walker that she was superhero material or something.

As Housed limped behind Walker, on their way out of the room, he checked the time on the wall clock. He spent way longer than usual on Walker.

So that’s the time it took to be careful with a patient. Huh.

House was sure that he didn’t have it in him to give a fuck for any clinic patients at all, let alone spending so much time on one.

Maybe he was developing a soft spot for superheroes in training. Unforgivable.

Jones stood right outside the door, and House was sure that she had probably been waiting right on that spot the whole time, like the sickeningly in love guard dog that she was.

House rolled his eyes at the intensity with which Jones examined her friend, and had no time nor mental health to spare in staying for the softly-whispered questions and reassurances of loving idiots.

With a nod to the French heathen who manned the reception to let the next patient in, House turned to limp his way back in the visit room, when he felt the faintest of brushes on his sleeve, so short and light that he could have imagined it.

He turned around, expecting to receive a barrage of thanks, since Walker seemed that type of kind person, but Walker was just smiling at him gratefully, clutching her envelope of documents close to her chest at a wacky angle due to the binding he had to do on her ribcage.

On the other hand, Jones was staring at him as if she was trying to figure out the best way to tell him a piece of horrible news.

Jones’ pained expression truly looked like constipation.

“I already gave you directions for the nearest bathroom, didn’t I? You’re big girl, just go already and stop making that face,” he said, eliciting a trilling laugh from Walker and an even more constipated expression from Jones.

House took offense to the look of sheer shock that he was on no less than five nurses around the reception. Yes, he had just made a patient laugh. They could take example from the French bastaard for one and stop staring any time, thank you very much.

“Just wanted to say thank you…” half-mumbled, half-said Jones, stuffing her hands in the tiny pockets of her jeans. “And I’m sorry.”

The sentiment behind the words was not lost on House.

He usually considered words such as ‘thank you’ and ‘I’m sorry’ just another pair of items in the long list of bullshit lies that people said on a regular basis.

However, the awkward, embarrassed, contrite way in which Jones had thanked him and apologized tugged at the ugly resentment buried deep within him that woke every time a genius like Tony Stark announced a new innovation in his ex-weapon factory.

Gifted individuals who threw away their intelligence or their powers to do stupid things like getting richer or blowing up buildings or watching the world burn didn’t receive any sort of heart-felt thank yous or I’m sorrys.

But House, House did. He was mean to the healthy and sick alike, wanting nothing more than stick it in to the rarest, most interesting diseases in the world, but sometimes, sometimes, he was the unlikely recipient of somebody else’s feelings of thankfulness and contrition.

House didn’t know how he felt about those, but he wished all those stupid genius people throwing away their intelligence to war and destruction could see him right now.

And there it was, a human being that was somehow powered by incredible resiliency or maybe even strength, shifting from foot to foot, looking at everywhere but House, thanking him for doing his job and apologizing from the waste of time that her drunken stupor had caused.

House nodded, at a loss for words.

He willfully ignored the look of absolute stupor that a passing nurse was giving him, trying not to think about the inane chatter that was due to arise from every gaggle of nurses in the hospital in an hour.

Absent-mindedly, he nodded to Walker several times quickly, and nervously tapped his cane as he watched the two women walked away.

After a few steps, Walker turned around and gave him a happy parting wave, smiling like a young girl.

Another few steps and Jones braced her companion’s elbow as they circumnavigated a frizzy-haired nurse and her decrepit charge on their way to the elevator.

House shook his head at the tiny amused smile on Walker’s face as she took notice of Jones’ gesture, which only caused the other woman to retreat her hand back to the small of Walker’s back instead.

“Goddamn super-powered lesbians in love,” murmured House, earning a frown of contempt from both the frizzy-haired nurse and the decrepit woman.

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# Visit 4: Not your therapist

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Everything about James Wilson was disgustingly soft. His hair, his chest, his eyes, his smile, even his snoring.

Low rhythmic rumbles that normally put House to sleep, apart from the shitty times when his cramps keep him up and begrudgingly awake.

That is how House found himself thinking an endless stream of the worst curses as he heaved himself up to a sitting position on his bed and blindly grabbed his phone from the bedside drawer.

A notification of found updates for a couple of apps, an update of the weather, and an e-mail.

He had to turn off the notification from Instagram because the craziest thing happened some days before.

He, who had Instagram only because Wilson nagged him half to death and Cuddy had the gall to make fun of him about his backwardness, had been flooded by hundreds of followers after Walker had followed his account.

It was impossible not to relate the two facts because House only had some 40 followers before waltzed in on his account, half of those followers were people who worked at the hospital and House highly suspected that Wilson used the power of his puppy dog eyes to convince their coworkers to follow House, and the other half were tourists from all over the world who followed the randomest New York accounts.

House had little to no patience for that Instagram bullshit. He took pictures of random shit. Trash-bins, street vendors, homeless people, alleys and streets, the reflection of sunlight on the skyscrapers, the zooming tires of cars, children flooded by pigeons. Some of that shit he would randomly post on Instagram, most of that shit Wilson would post it for him during shared breaks or during boring scenes in movies and tv shows.

One day his phone buzzed at work with a rare notification of a follower. The username was “TWalker” and the gallery of pictures was full of hipster views into the daily life of a New Yorker.

House had wondered how on earth Walker had found his Instagram account, then scratched it up to one of those magic tricks that tech-savvy people could do.

The issue had arisen when House’s phone started buzzing almost constantly with Instagram notifications. He had triple checked Walker’s account out of curiosity. Her only description was the standard-issue capture “average blonde. NYC,” and her pictures were mostly children, old women, mugs of coffee and random bits of furniture.

House hadn’t bothered asking himself why an account like Walker’s could have thousands of followers, now did he bother with reading any of her captions.

He had turned off all Instagram notifications from his phone, and posted a recent picture of street art.

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On the edge of the bed, with Wilson snoring softly behind him, House idly tapped at his phone, hurling insults at his leg in his mind.

For a while he tricked himself into being interested about the weather, but curiosity soon got the better of him and he opened his e-mail.

The new message was in his work account. He was about to archive it without opening it, when he took a look at the sender’s address and paused.

From: [TrishJewel@gmail.com](mailto:TrishJewel@gmail.com)

Wasn’t “Trish” what Jones had called Walker when she’d introduced her to House?

He opened the e-mail and instantly felt better about his stupid cramping leg preventing him from getting some sleep.

Apparently Walker had taken his words seriously (as all patients ought to have done), and was worried about the abdominal wounds she suffered. In the e-mail, after convoluted formulas dictated by common courtesy, she asked House if he could recommend her a good gynecologist.

Only the very polite way in which Walker wrote stopped House from sending out what he wanted to say first. (Which was pretty much: ‘Google it’).

But since Walker had listened to him, and her writing was actually not that bad, firstly he sent off the first name he remembered and then he asked her how she got his e-mail address.

Something must have been keeping Walker awake too, since she replied in a few minutes.

Apparently House’s work e-mail address was public, thanks to the hospital’s transparency policy of displaying the digital profiles of their employees on a website.

Cursing transparency policy into the following week, House immediately typed a reminder to bully Cuddy into deleting his webpage, and with a thousand glorious plans about he was going to do that, he set to sleep peacefully.

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House swore to himself to forget the name of every single doctor in the hospital in which he worked. Every single one of them. Fuck photographic memory.

In his haste, House had sent Walker the name of the first best gynecologist he knew around the city: Atsuko Kōno. Which had been a gross miscalculation from his part, because Dr. Kōno had been one of the newest additions to Cuddy’s lineup last year. She had gushed about Kōno to every breathing body, most likely including the comatose patients.

So there he was, leaning idly on his cane on a rainy Wednesday afternoon, in his office, with his gaping ducklings, and there Walker was, her purse and coat elegantly folded on her right forearm, striding alongside the new resident gynecologist, Dr. Kōno.

“Is that-“ said Taub.

“No way-“ sighed 13.

Kutner sputtered unintelligible things.

Foreman watched the corridor silently, and because of that (but also because House had no idea why the ducklings recognized let alone gawked at Walker and it irked him), House liked him best in that moment.

Dr. Kōno opened the door with her signature beaming smile. House loathed people who were so cheerful right after lunch in the hospital.

Unless Dr. Kōno had eaten her own food and had drank her own brew of coffee or tea, as most head of departments did in the privacy of their offices, House didn’t see the reason why anyone would have been happy after having tasted the crap that the canteen and the vending machines in the building offered.

“House-hakase, hello,” greeted Kono with her usual joviality and thick accent.

“This nice lady is Patricia Walker-san. She asked if she could speak with you directly. Very briefly.”

Amidst gasps of awe and adoration, Walker stood with a tiny hesitant smile. Her expression and body language spoke of a sort of familiarity but also of discomfort at being the center of the attention of strangers.

Her gaze never wavered from House’s. She was trying to convey something with trepidation and desperation.

House considered sending her out, but curiosity got the better of him. Not the look. His own curiosity, he told himself.

“Kōno,” he nodded at the woman in greeting, earning a smiling nod in return, and cocked his head to the side to signal Walker to follow him, which she did promptly and quietly.

In his office, Walker confirmed his assumption.

“Sorry for barging in, doctor. I did make a comment about wishing to speak with you soon, but I had no idea that  the doctor was ready to walk me to your office without notice!”

“Whatever. Kōno’s the embodiment of freaking sunshine, you can only shield yourself from it so much,” he grunted, sitting down, motioning for Walker to take a seat.

For a few moments they sat in front of one another, looking each other in the eye.

House once again confirmed to himself Walker’s strict upbringing.

She didn’t shift on her seat, she didn’t look down or sideways, she didn’t engage his eyes directly, but she did kept her steely focus on the general direction of his face. Motionless, like a Barbie doll.

She even breathed neatly, with deep breaths that were as much conscious actions to make herself relax, as they were part of a daily routine, probably her self-defense training.

Underneath the layers of expensive clothes, pristine makeup and severe education, there was a kind woman willing to fight for herself (and others).

House couldn’t fathom why Walker would have wanted to meet him again, until Walker’s jaw twitched the tiniest bit and her hands shifted almost imperceptibly, an aborted movement that Walker had stifled a second too late.

She was nervous about something.

“Everything all right with Dr. Kōno, then?”

Walker locked eyes with him, stupefied.

Bull’s eye.

“Um… Yes. I…”

It was amazing the speed with which Walker lost control of herself in that moment. One second there was a pretty marble statuette. The next second Walker’s hand shook as she quickly wiped her lucid eye, careful not to disrupt her makeup.

That gesture looked so natural, almost instinctive, and it spoke loudly of Walker’s childhood and adolescence.

“You must think me so very stupid, doctor. A few days ago I tried to take on five men by myself, and now I’m so.. so relieved to know that I can still carry children… And the funny thing is… I’m not even sure the person I love loves me back, let alone have a child with me.”

Walker’s voice broke on the last words, but she quickly caught herself and pressing two knuckles to her mouth, she breathed deeply once, twice, closed her eyes for a moment, and looked down to further recollect herself.

“I don’t think so,” House replied after Walker looked like she wasn’t shaking so badly anymore.

He didn’t know what to say, though.

To bide himself time, he looked outside at the grey, rainy afternoon. Everything was rapidly losing all its colors to the night’s univocal darkness.

“Trying to keep five predators away from their prey of choice without calling 911 first is reckless. It’s really fucking moronic, it’s borderline suicidal.”

House sighed under his breath as he continued staring outside. Now that he got honesty out of the way, he could maybe try to…console Walker or whatever.

“That doesn’t detract from the fact that you saw somebody in need and tried to help. That’s not just human, that’s letting the best part of humanity rise to the surface. That’s the proverbial ‘right thing to do,’ for which consciousness nags us all or at least most of us all day, and to which superheroes pledge their lives.

Although barging into danger without backup or a serious advantage was stupid, it was also… brave, I guess. Many in your position would have hesitated, even more would have just walked away, they would have left it to vigilantes or superheroes without even bothering calling 911 or witnesses.”

House had meant to say something along the line of “What you did was stupid but tough as fuck but also very stupid.” He had no idea where that sappy speech came from, he needed to stop smooching Wilson so often, it clearly was doing him nothing good.

When he turned around, Walker was sitting with her head ducked low, smiling the faintest smile and carefully dabbing her eyes with a Kleenex.

And, well, like House was going to stop smooching Wilson anytime soon, come on.

“It’s always been so frustrating for me,” said Walker in a hushed tone. “Being powerless. Both in choosing my own path in life and in being Jessica’s friend. Seeing her doing the amazing things she can do, standing by her side as she made her own life choices, for the better or worse, while I… just let myself live.

I’ve always hated it,” murmured Walker, tucking her handkerchief in her purse and smiling up at House.

She still looked on the verge of crying, but there was the sense of a blooming resolve around her.

“You know doctor, having someone say out loud that I should have called 911, I should have asked for help… It’s something I’ve been trying not to tell myself because that was both the right and the smart thing to do. But no, I just wanted not to feel powerless for once. And here I am now.”

Walker ducked her head again, massaging her abdomen with her hand slowly. House was again at a loss as to what to say, so he kept quiet, twirling his cane, scratching his chin.

A question rose in his mind after a few moments dedicated to the patter of the rain outside.

“Did you talk to Jones about this?”

“God no,” snorted Walker immediately, which confirmed to House that Walker’s flirt with mortal danger was most likely a reaction to the afore-mentioned feeling of hopelessness in contrast with Jones’ powers.

Food for psychologists.

“None of my business, but I’ll be that boring stereotypical old geezer and tell you that you need to talk about it with her. There you have it, words of insuperable wisdom.”

Walker’s crystalline laughter exploded in the office, before the blonde quickly slapped a hand on her mouth and the only sign of mirth that was left were her shaking shoulders and her crinkled eyes.

Wilson was going to be disgustingly pleased when his ducklings would let slip that something as unearthly as _laughter_ was heard from within his office.

“I apologize doctor,” murmured Walker, to which House replied with an eloquent, secretly bashful, grunt.

“I was taken by surprise by the mental image of Jess and I talking so openly. It’s been so long since..” Walker trailed off, looking outside for a moment before refocusing on House, but now her smile was a frail thing that irked House for its fakeness.

“Maybe there’s a relation between Jess’ powers and what I did,”

House was dying from the urge to say ‘duh’ to that.

“I hadn’t felt like that, useless, powerless, since I’ve been almost assault by that group of over-zealous fans and had to barricade myself on a back-alley fire escape, and had to call Jess and wait for her to help me. It wasn’t even the only time something like that happened, but it was the memory that resurfaced when I charged blindly at those bastards a few days ago.” Walker drew in a deep breath.

“And I had to be rescued again. Of course.”

Walker sighed in exasperation and the sound irritated House to no end.

“Altruism is hailed as one of the best qualities to cultivate in modern democratic societies, but the instincts of self-preservation and of the continuation of the species are deeply seated in us. You may think about yourself as a coward or something like that now, but I actually hope you’ll be less like a reckless idiot and more like a smart person who calls for fucking backup in a life-threatening situation, and we’re already established that there’s no shame in having backup.”

“Right,” said Walker nodding several times quickly.

Then she slowly raised her gaze, smiling broadly at him. The nerve of her.

“And if your self-preservation gets stronger, that means I’ll get not to see you anymore, which is good, because you’re already enticing half of the hospital and I need susceptible people to terrorize to enjoy my working hours.

Not to mention the fact that I’m starting to feel like a damned therapist here, and every breathing or barely breathing thing in this hospital, including the comatose patients and the dying potted plants, can tell you that that’s a bad prospect for everybody involved.”

Walker was startled again by a sudden burst of laughter, her hand slapped her knee on instinct before she quickly tried to stifle herself and to regain composure as soon as possible.

“I don’t know doctor, you’re doing great so far, I feel better now and I think it’s thanks to this talk. Jess felt so, too, you know? She told me that it was refreshing being dismissed as if she were just another stranger. When she’s recognized, people.. well, there are mixed reactions but most fear her and avoid her.”

House snorted at the mental image or Jones’ petulant scowl striking fear in anything.

“I’m sure her powers can strike fear when she wants, I just haven’t seen them yet. Or maybe she’s done something already and I didn’t muster up the will to care,”

His leg started to hurt badly enough that it warranted a pill. He quickly popped one and went on stretching his bad leg under the table, shifting on his chair to find the least painful angle.

Looking up, House found himself at the end of a peculiar gaze. Walker looked at him with a befuddled, uncertain expression, her lips slightly parted in an attempt to speak before she shook herself out of her daze.

“Doctor, how come you don’t know what Jess’ powers are?”

“As I said, she hasn’t done anything noticeable in front of me yet. She has a very resilient body than normal, but the rest is guesswork.”

Walker raised her eyebrows in disbelief and shifted her purse in discomfort. Why, House couldn’t fathom.

“Is this some kind of inside joke between the two of you?”

“No, why?”

“Well ,you can confirm what all of Jess’ abilities are by Googling them.”

House’s felt his face scrunch in confusion, and Walker soon elaborated: “Jess doesn’t have a code-name or a superhero name or anything like that. Even though sometimes, excuse the term, she bullshits information about her abilities just for the hell of it, pretty much everything about her is public knowledge. Here in the city you can ask people on the street about her, but the fastest way is Google.”

…

 _Ah_.

Well, that explained many things.

House didn’t want to admit the fact that the newly-found peacefulness of living with Wilson rendered him lazier in his everyday routine. This included ignoring local gossips and news even more than before.

The current major of the city was some vigilante-friendly Italian, right?

In lieu of avoiding that mental dead-end, House said the next thought on his mind.

“Jones’ a patented idiot then. I don’t need her bank account coordinates to know that she has nowhere the resources of the likes of Stark or Romanoff to be completely public and still retain a modicum of normal life, so I guess she let her real name out accidentally. As I said: idiot.”

“Oh but she’s never tried to keep her identity private. She never had a code-name or anything like that,” said Walker with mischievous mirth.

“She’s never even thought of one, did she?”

“Nope,” affirmed Walker, and she laughed when House couldn’t fight the urge to pinch his nose in exasperation anymore.

“Well, thanks for confirming the degree of Jones’ idiocy but I think I prefer to play some more with her and deduce her abilities for myself. She clearly doesn’t have accelerated healing to the point where she never needs medical attention, so I’m sure she’ll come bother me again at the clinic in the future.”

“I’m afraid so, doctor,” said Walker, beaming in a ridiculous manner and standing up from her chair.

House’s leg was still too cranky for him to stand up then, so he slid his chair towards the door a bit, toying with his cane.

“Thank you so much again for listening to my ramblings,” said Walker even though House was already waving her words away, knowing that she was going to be the polite one.

“Thanks for looking out for Jessica, for scolding me, and for making me realize things about myself that I hadn’t wrapped my head around yet.”

“As long as you two keep in mind that I’m not a baby-sitter nor a goddamn psychologist,” grumbled House, already uncomfortable with the situation.

With trained movements, Walker quickly whipped out a business card from her purse and placed it on House’s desk before walking to the door.

“If Jess visits again, shoot me a text, please. A mutual friend saw her prescriptions in one of her drawers, but he didn’t see her taking any medicines. Other than Jack Daniels, that is,” Walker sighed but shook her head, recovering quickly.

“That only goes to confirm Jones’ idiocy once and for all.”

Walker smiled a tiny grateful smile at him. Her hand was on the handle when House remembered something.

“Don’t stay close to her when’s drunk.”

He immediately caught the blonde’s attention. She stiffened, clutching the door’s handle tighter.

“Why would you say that?”

Walker’s tone was abrupt, demanding. House saw clearly the woman who tried to single-handedly take on five violent men.

“Drunk people are not exactly in touch with reality, and if Jones is walking around the city while she’s completely out of it…”

“And why would you know _that_?”

Walker’s tone was brisk and serious. She sounded like House had just accused Jones of mass murder instead of drunken disorder.

Suddenly House lost all will to enter a verbal sparring with the woman.

“Have that talk you should have and nag her directly,” he said, tapping his cane and waggling his eyebrows but hoping that his tone would carry his intention of closing the argument before it even began.

Thankfully, Walker quickly lost her fiery look, then she sighed quietly and it was over.

“For the record. When Jess is fully inebriated she doesn’t use her powers at all. We haven’t lived together in a while, but I know her, she’s _not_ like that,” punctuated Walker by boring her gaze into House’s.

He merely shrugged and twirled his cane, fighting the urge to try to massage his tingling thigh. He hated when the ache turned into needle-pricking tingling, it was distracting as fuck.

“Whatever you say Walker. I’m still nobody’s baby-sitter. Next time she’s drunk in the hospital I’ll leave her to retch her weight in vomit and won’t even call that half-French bastard at reception to clean her up. Even though he deserves nothing less.”

His words managed to have Walker relax and smile again.

She shifted her purse under her left armpit and caressed her probably still bruised hip inconspicuously with her free hand.

“Sorry to inform you, doctor, but you already are Jess’ baby-sitter. You’re part of a club now, you know. It’s a very exclusive club, the entry is free but the subscription is mandatory, automatic and doesn’t have an expire date I’m afraid.”

“Damn tiny script, I’ll file in a complaint.”

Once she’d finished laughing, Walker’s body language shifted as if she were about to bend down and initiate physical contact ( _hugs_ … _ew_ ), but fortunately she thought better of it, and simply gripped House’s forearm lightly.

“Thank you doctor,” the woman spoke with her steel-strong gaze rather than her voice. What Jones had done to deserve such loyalty and love, House was dying to know.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

House twirled his cane lazily as he watched Walker saunter away.

His leg felt like it was going to behave in the near future, so he stood up and limped back into the bullpen.

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# Visit 5: Consultant Superheroes

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If dish-washing machines didn’t exist, House was sure that he would have lived on take-out food.

On windy days when the winter cold settled into his bones if he so much as let an inch of his nose outside the door, an almost constant staccato of pain resounded in his leg. At times his shoulders would start to ache and he’d need to sit down and recline his neck a bit to make his spine pop and relax, driving a bit of pain away.

Getting old fucking sucked, he thought as he finished loading the dish-washer.

His latest attempt at tuna pasta had not been so bad, even though he didn’t believe that it had been as good as Wilson had tried to lead him to believe.

House straightened up when he heard his ringtone calling him from the living room.

He limped there, 13 was calling him and there was the icon of a message received in the notification bar of the screen. Sighing, he picked up the phone.

“Yes.”

“Doctor, hello. I texted you, but-“

“Haven’t read it yet, what is it?”

“A patient asked to call your office from the clinic’s reception. I went downstairs to check up on her but she insists she’ll speak only with you. She won’t let me near her.”

“Symptoms.”

“She wouldn’t tell me but she’s nauseated, exhausted, food- and sleep-deprived-“

“Who is it?” asked House, pissed at the arrogance of some people but with a gnawing feeling in the back of his mind.

“Jessica Jones.”

Knew it.

House hung up and limped into his bedroom to retrieve a semi-clean shirt.

 

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“Well, you look like shit,” he said as he laid eyes on Jones.

13, who had turned around at his arrival and was regarding him with curiosity, had had enough wits about her to take Jones into a room and ask her to strip down and put on a hospital gown.

Jones turned around slowly at his voice, her eyes were unfocused. House limped nearer, allowing her to recognize him.

“Doctor,” she drawled, and House added it to the growing list of symptoms.

Paler complexion, nausea, volatile core temperature, exhaustion, difficulty in motor and cognitive functions in general.

“Here,” said Jones again, pointing at 13, no, at 13’s hand.

A syringe.

13 had the presence of mind of capping it and bagging it, but, honestly? A syringe?

Of all the moronic, stupid…

“A man… men… Two?” drawled Jones, looking increasingly disoriented.

“They… Um…” paused Jones, looking hesitantly between him and 13.

“If there are tests to run, 13 stays,” he said, ignoring Jones’ confused look at the moniker.

People focused on the most useless things.

“The syringe, Jones,” he snapped.

“Right… Stuff. We think… it’s… powered people…”

House ignored 13’s stiffening posture and continued.

“Who is ‘we’? Where were you injected? When? Why do you think it’s for the powered?”

It took a while, but Jones conveyed that the ‘we’ was she and a neighbor slash flat-mate slash secretary (which, ?).

She was ambushed in a coffee shop where she’d ducked in quickly for something hot to drink during a case (a case? Detective work?).

A woman distracted her while somebody needled her in the throng of people who were rushing out of the shop’s door. Jones felt it just in time to close her hand on the syringe and keep it.

The point of entry was her lower back, a classic stab in the back.

It had been five days ago and her friend and she suspected that in the syringe was some shit to take out powered people because her powers had been volatile starting that night.

“’lso helps that Spiderman… ‘isited me… while ago. Babbled someth… tip from underground… cure for...”

“A cure to all powered people,” finished House.

His mind started buzzing in excitement. He could finally analyze the stuff that SHIELD dealt with on a regular basis.

He immediately set to take a sample of Jones’ blood.

He tuned out 13 explaining the procedure to Jones and mentally applauded the woman for being completely silent and still during the operation. Although Jones’ stillness was more due to the disease than anything else, House still appreciated it, it was a nice change.

Blood sample done, he elbowed 13 to walk with him further away from the bed.

“You, to the lab right now. Slap whatever label you want on the sample and make it quick.”

13, like the good doctor House had always known she was, nodded minutely in understanding, her face void of fear or even nervousness.

“Insomnia and alcoholism? Phenobarbital overdose?” she asked.

“I just said whatever-“

“For the documentation,” she interrupted, which, right. The documentation.

“Sounds good. Now, scram.”

House watched 13 turn around and walk at a brisk pace while his heart beat faster than during sex. The day was certainly looking up.

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“Volatile how?”

Jones scowled at him in confusion from the relative dark of the draped forearm on her dark-rimmed eyes. She had just lost the battle against her own stubbornness and laid herself down on the bed fully.

She was so pale and weak that House decided he would remain in the room and check the rate at which the illness worsened, in case Walker came in, House could give her a realistic estimate, at least.

“Your powers. You mentioned your powers have been volatile. How? Am I putting everyone in danger by keeping you here?”

The question was more to check on the rate of Jones’ deteriorating communicative capabilities than in order to discover her powers. At the moment, House only wanted to see what was in that syringe and how it reacted to Jones’ blood.

“Not unless… strength comes back… And jumping. I can’t- ‘feel too heavy. …legs hurt,” murmured Jones, sounding utterly miserable, but nearly as coherent as before.

Her breathing was starting to get more labored though, and the amount of perspiration on her temples and neck had doubled in half an hour.

House continued to stare out of the window, filing the heightened strength and jumping ability away.

“Who is she?” Taub’s voice said behind him and truly enough, Taub was standing by the door when House turned around.

His expression said that he was already cataloguing Jones’ visible symptoms.

“Our new patient, Jessica Jones. Symptoms are nausea, weakness, motor and cognitive impediment. She was injected with something, 13 should have the blood results soon.”

House spoke as he limped towards Jones, taking in her unfocused gaze and her lazy blinking.

Soon she was going to be out like a light.

His estimation winded down to a handful of days.

“ _That_ Jessica Jones?” asked Taub with a wondering tone that made House turn towards him.

Taub looked half in awe and half spooked.

What the hell.

“What?”

“House come on, ‘Jessica Jones.’ How come you don’t know about her? How long have you been living in the city?”

“Since Cuddy sneakily lured me in. How is that relevant?”

Taub stared at him in wonder, opening his arms until he seemingly gave up and left them dangle at his sides. He was gob-smacked.

“ _Jessica_ _Jones_. The powered who dealt with Kilgrave, another powered who could sort of possess people by talking to them.”

Jessica lowly groaned in pain from the bed.

“He made a bunch of people do horrible things. They featured on TrishTalk a few weeks ago. They said Jones brought them all together, organized a therapy group-“

Jones loudly groaned in pain from the bed.

“She’s a cop so she’s-“

“P.I.” croaked Jones weakly.

“-tracked him down-“

13 walked around the corner with files in her hand and the brisk pace of a woman on a mission. Atta girl.

“Is the rest of this scintillating chronicle _actually_ relevant for the current situation or can we move on to the diagnosis part already?”

Taub was intelligent enough to raise his hands in the universal ‘I give up’ sign.

“Find a nurse we can trust not to fangirl all over this one, have her eat and drink something if she can. Where are Kutner and Foreman?”

House half-listened to the reply, looking back at Jones instead.

She squinted tiredly back at him, and for the first time since House first saw her, she smiled. It was a tiny, pitiful thing, but it somehow conveyed a cheer, it sounded like Jones was telling him to kick the ass of whatever was wrecking her into next week.

The tips of the fingers of her hands and feet were shaking, the blue veins standing in contrast to the pale complexion.

On her wrist there were scribbled two lines in capital letters with a black marker pen. House titled his head to read them:

NO DRINK

CALL TRISH

“In the bullpen in five,” he instructed, finally tearing his gaze away from her.

She just passed out anyway.

.

.

.

 

Malcom Ducasse was a skitterish, gaunt-looking man with two colorful pins on both his coat and sweater. The first pin, the bigger one, sported yellow lettering on a red background and it read “NO ALCOHOL” and the second one sported blue words on a baby blue background and it read “3 MONTHS.”

House wondered if the second pin was also bought by pregnant women (and soon-to-be pensioners).

Nonetheless, Ducasse’s arrival in the bullpen had been beneficial for two major reasons.

First, he gave permission to his ducklings to inspect Jones’ house.

And second, Ducasse zealously set to write down every unusual thing he could remember since Jones stumbled home with an empty syringe in one hand and a string of swearwords that would have made Satan blush.

Of course House couldn’t enjoy a nice thing in peace for five minutes, which was why his pager vibrated against his belt not three lines into Ducasse’s report.

He lifted his jacket and read the code to an emergency in the patient’s room. Well, shit.

“Doctor House?”

“Stay here and keep writing,” he said, limping to Jones’ room as quick as his good leg could take him.

Rounded the corner to the corridor where her room was, House involuntarily stopped in his track.

Nurse Temple was standing in front of the closed door to Jones’ room. More precisely, she had molded her spine to the door’s handle, and she was staring down honest to God Tony Stark.

A kid was standing too close to Stark to be anything but a close acquaintance or an employee, but whatever, who cared about the kid.

Fucking Stark was trying to chat up Nurse Temple to let him into Jones’ room. That was amazing. He wanted to say ‘good fucking luck with that,’ since Nurse Temple was hospital-wide famous for not cutting anybody any slack, not even House.

If House recalled correctly, it was Nurse Temple who had often mentored that French bastard down at the clinic while he was still a newface.

And Tony Stark thought he was going to make Temple move. House snorted so loud he attracted the trio’s attention.

“Asking Nurse Temple anything is like asking New York to be fucking freezing in winter. The walls are more helpful.”

Stark didn’t miss a beat.

“Well, why are you only showing up now to tell me this. Blowing up walls is kind of my specialty.”

“Mr. Stark!” “Stark!” said the kid and Nurse Temple simultaneously.

Stark pouted and the two shared a brief look of shared exasperation before refocusing into their respective alliances.

“Why are you here Stark?” House asked, limping close enough to Stark to catalogue the huge bags under his eyes behind his stupid sunglasses.

“To drink awful hospital coffee and escort the person in that room-“ he motioned lazily at the door guarded by Temple. “in the Tower to be treated properly. And I already passed on the awful coffee. Wouldn’t want to pass on helping the lovely lady too.”

“Helping her or giving her to SHIELD?” spat out Temple with a degree of badassery that House approved of, and more so because Stark and the kid looked rightfully impressed.

Yeah, you didn’t fuck around with Nurse Temple.

“What do you think you’re up against here, doctor? This is above and beyond your job-”

“My job is to kick diseases’ asses and make the life of all my colleagues a living hell. And I already make the life of my colleagues hell on a daily basis by simply existing, and you’re hindering my kicking the ass of what’s affecting her.”

That made Stark and kid focus keenly on him as they did in front of Temple’s determination, and House lied to himself and told himself that he wasn’t at all proud of himself.

“Who are you again?” asked Stark in a velvety tone, ducking his head to look at House above the frame of the sunglasses.

House fought the cringe at the sight of the man’s eyes.

Drug abuse and chronic insomnia looked so much better on himself than on Stark. House thanked every deity up there that he wasn’t a superhero on top of all the other bullshit.

“Well, doctor, please, tell me how you feel,” drawled Stark with an amused smirk, bending back a bit to cover his eyes again.

He said that out loud.

Oh well, whatever, it happened a lot.

“I’m the one who’s treating that woman and that’s all you need to know Stark. Now get out of my hospital.”

“ _Your_ hospital?” said a too-familiar voice.

Four heads turned to where the corridor ended in the elevators and emergency exits, where Cuddy stood imperiously, one elegant hand on her equally elegant hip, giving them all one of the best glares in her repertoire.

House felt a tiny pang of nostalgia at seeing that glare.

It had been too long.

Almost three days.

“Fine. Get out of my ward and then get out of _her_ hospital,” he corrected himself, curbing his urge to preen when Cuddy focused her glare on him.

“House. Explain.”

“Powered person with some powers, did something stupid, got sick, diagnosis en route-“

“House!” came 13’s voice somewhere behind him.

“See? Things are moving along, etcetera. I’m not giving her to Stark.”

“It depends on what the substance is, House. We’re not equipped-“

“It’s not contagious,” said 13 by his side. Atta girl.

Cuddy fought her eyes rolling out of her eye-bulbs valiantly.

“We can cure it.”

“You can cure or you _think_ you can cure it?” interjected Stark.

“Pardon my slip. We _will_ cure it.”

“And for how long is she meant to suffer while-“

“Oh, please. Let’s not pretend we give half a fuck about her, Stark. She chose to come here after being sick for days like an idiot so I get to call dibs on what’s affecting her. Now get out of my ward.”

House was almost sad to see that Stark was too exhausted to fight.

His jaw clenched and unclenched, his neck and shoulders sagged a bit, his eyes narrowed then closed for a beat behind the damn stupid sunglasses.

Then, the strangest thing happened.

Stark turned towards the young kid, and looked at him as if asking him if that was okay.

House had never doubted his deductive abilities more than in that moment.

When the kid almost imperceptibly nodded, jaw set tight and a steel gaze in his young face, Stark relaxed.

And House was fucking confused.

“If somebody so much as sneezes near Jones, Fury will be after your asses. There, warned you. Don’t come whining to me afterwards,” said the billionaire, spreading his arms dramatically.

“Doctors,” said Stark in lieu of a greeting as the kid who shadowed him stepped in line with uncanny agility.

When they disappeared in the elevator, Cuddy finally relaxed and muttered something about nightmares and paperwork.

“Ducklings, in the bullpen,” said House, limping back to his office.

“House, you owe me an explanation,” called Cuddy after him.

“Nurse Temple will be more than happy to explain everything, I have a diagnosis to go back to.”

He heard Cuddy’s hands slap on her thighs as she let her arms fell in exasperation.

House couldn’t suppress a grin.

.

.

.

 

House was staring at Jones’ chest slowly rising and falling in time with her lungs drawing in precious oxygen and expelling carbon dioxide through the mask, when his phone chimed with an e-mail notification.

From: [tony.stark@starkinc.com](mailto:tony.stark@starkinc.com)

House closed his eyes and inhaled, counted to five, and exhaled.

Finally, he opened his eyes and clicked the mail open. Thankfully, it was quite short.

 

_Saw you lied on Jones’ entry forms_

_Kudos for that_

_Banner wants you to have his contact_

_His expertise already proved helpful in similar cases_

_Free heads-up SHIELD’s coming with NDAs to sign_

_Condolences_

_JK wasn’t free how’s she doing?_

 

Fuck SHIELD and fuck NDAs. Wilson was going to be pissed.

Also, House was never going to admit it out loud, but Dr. Banner’s help would indeed help.

House looked down at scribbled lines on Jones’ wrist. A bit above them, a needle was pumping a carefully concocted mix of chemicals in the woman’s body that was working too slowly for his liking.

He selected Banner’s e-mail address from the bottom of Stark’s message.

House thought that it had been a dick move by Jones’ part to remain conscious long enough to insist on not calling Walker, but House knew that if it were him on a hospital bed, too weak to even massage his thigh when the pain pissed him off, with a tiny tube up his dick to piss and the days’ sweat accumulating on his skin bit by bit, he wouldn’t have Wilson called either.

He sighed again, and typed in a new e-mail.

.

.

.

 

Fuck Banner and his friendship with Thor, and fuck Thor and his acquaintanceship with Strange.

And fuck Strange, in particular.

Couldn’t a man stay dead these days?

House could have accepted Strange’s suggestion that the virus Jones had been injected with was fighting the cure like cancer fought against chemio, if Strange hadn’t used that stupid smartass tone that he used to use at every conference House met him.

“Fucking Strange,” he said.

“Yeah, you mentioned that,” muttered Wilson as he surveyed the last test results. “Have you seen this? Your superhero will be on her feet in a couple of days. You did it.”

House snorted at the possessive, and resumed his scowling, twirling his cane nervously.

“Fucking Strange,” he said again, just in case the bastard was listening in, since he now was a wizard or a ghost or whatever.

Wilson carried Jones’ folder under his arm instead of clipping it to her bed. That seat was taken by a dummy set of documents proof-read by some SHIELD agents.

Wilson walked to the window, next to House, and wise of years of knowing House’s tempers, didn’t even try to touch him. Thank fuck for small mercies, thought House.

“The first powered person hospitalized here as far as we know and the only help we’ve had in her treatment is that the virus’ behavior resembles a tumor. House, you consult with your team all the time, how is this any different?”

But it was different. It was completely different.

It was because Walker’s words had been resonating in his ears since he saw Jones donning the hospital gown.

Powerless.

Powerless.

 _Powerless_.

He wanted to show her that they, humans without supernatural gifts, could be capable of wonders just as great if not greater than their heroes. He himself had risen above his peers to fight against the worst diseases in the world.

Science had made Captain America capable of kicking Nazi’s asses, not some God-sent powers.

But Wilson was (maybe, possibly) a bit right.

As soon as Strange’s stupid voice had said something about tumors, House hung up on him and brought Wilson in, resulting in the final brainstorm that brought Jones’ cure to life.

Hours later, Jones could stay awake long enough to fold a can in her hand as if it were paper, and all her vitals were due to being back to normal during the course of the next 24 hours.

But House didn’t voice his reasoning to Wilson.

He had wanted to get to the cure without external help, especially not from powered people.

It was petulant, and Wilson was going to be all kind and coaxing if he knew, so House kept quiet.

He tried to console himself by recalling that Strange’s genius had been known world-wide before his disappearance. Strange’s medical insight certainly didn’t come from whatever powers made him worthy of respect from a fucking demi-god.

To the outside world, House’s team and Wilson had solved the puzzle all by themselves.

But House knew…

“We could write a paper about this,” said Wilson, his voice shaking House out of his reverie.

House craned his neck to look at Wilson. His partner stood right beside him, near but not enough for their jackets to touch. He was looking outside, no, he was looking at House through the glass.

A tiny smile made his eyes crinkle endearingly at the corners.

“ _Known effects of concentrated Thallium compounds in powered-patients_. Or something like that,” said Wilson, turning around and slowly letting his lower back rest on the bottom of the window.

House was pretty sure that it was against some safety rule Cuddy made up.

He couldn’t wait to sniff Wilson out to her at the first useful opportunity.

House limped back to Jones’ bed, leaning his ass on it to take some pressure off of his leg.

It had been awhile since he’d published something. And a joint publication with Wilson would look better than he signing the article alone. Those assholes editing the medical periodicals always thought his articles were written solely to bullshit them.

They weren’t.

Sometimes.

House imagined the faces of Stark, Banner and Strange when they saw the article.

“Yeah, why not.”

.

.

.

 

# Visit 6: Thank you

“Doctor.”

House limped a bit quicker.

“Doctor House.”

House ducked right to avoid a nurse and a young doctor who were talking about a patient.

House didn’t bother with memorizing all of his colleagues’ names, of course, he wasn’t stupid, but he thought the doctor was some young duckling waiting for a spot to open in Chicago, where his brother waited.

House hoped the doctor had lied on the reason why he wanted a spot. The more you wanted to be transferred somewhere, the less likely it was to see your request fulfilled.

“Doctor _House.”_

How the fuck did the bastard reached him so swiftly from across a reception full of bustling people?

“Nurse Malfuss,” he sneered.

“Malfoy,” replied the bastard without a hint of irritation in his voice, as usual.

His long, blond hair was threatening to burst free of the glittery hairpin sticking out from his head, his cheeks were as gaunt as usual, and the bags under his eyes were nothing but impressive as usual.

Overall, normal levels of exhaustion for the head nurse of the clinic who doubled his shifts in the emergency wing.

Malfoy’s expression was the visual epitome of exasperation, and House stopped to appreciate the fact that the man had ditched that stupid, overachieving smile from his new-face days.

Although House couldn’t say that he missed the quiet sigh that the nurse used to let out when he called House through the hospital’s phone system to remind him of his clinic hours. House needed only to snipe a simple remark and Nurse Malfoy would back off, not confident enough in his newly-acquired position to pester House further.

Good old days.

“You know I’m going to report any early attempts at escaping the clinic hours, doctor.”

The amount of disdain that the smarmy bastard put in that single, last word was remarkable. He sounded as if he had years and years of practice under his belt.

“I waited five minutes and no patient came in. So I’m going to lunch. Move,” growled House, but Malfoy only rolled his eyes minutely.

He had quickly grown a hospital-wide famous thick skin for anything, from cutting sarcasm to veiled (and less veiled) threats.

“You waited less than half a minute before bailing, doctor.”

Observant bastard.

“If you let me go I’ll snatch a baguette from the canteen’s kitchen for you,” said House raising his eyebrows in a hopefully appealing manner.

“Despite your mysterious obsession with my 16th century French ancestors, I am thoroughly British, doctor-“

“A nice eel swimming in gelatin then.”

“-and no matter the food offered, the fact remains that you still have 25 minutes of clinic hours, which means that you’re going to step into that elevator at the end of those 25 minutes, not a second before.”

House tried to limp-sidestep the man right, left, right again, but it was as helpful a tactic as any other previous time.

Gritting his teeth, he opted to make as dignified a retreat as possible and hurled expletives at the stupid smarmy half-French shithead all the way back to the visit room.

“AND-

Jones.”

.

.

.

 

Jones had made herself at home already.

She was leaning against the wall of medicinal cabinets, hands in her jacket’s pockets, her posture relaxed and unconcerned.

Her complexion looked healthy, if House counted her natural paleness. Her hair looked in need of a wash but it wasn’t thickened by soot or alcoholic residues. Her eyes looked attentive and mirthful, the bags underneath them were on par with somebody who worked odd hours (such as PIs), and neither her nose nor her mouth seemed to have trouble breathing.

“Wipe that smirk off your face, Jones. What are you doing here?”

Jones, the gall of her, didn’t wipe that smirk out of her face, instead it doubled and she cocked her head to the side in a teasing manner.

“Visit hours, doctor, I’m a patient,” she croaked.

“No, you’re not. You just need some more sleep and to dump some bucks in one of those new bio-stores that are springing up faster than aliens these days.”

House limped to the chair and dumped himself on it with a grunt. God, he hated those pieces of shit chairs.

He wanted his nice, comfortable armchair, the one either in his office or at home would have been great.

“What are you here for? I’m not giving you the good drugs,” he quickly added. Even though Jones had never displayed the symptoms of drug abuse, a recovering alcoholic wasn’t to trifle with.

Jones snorted and rolled her eyes in reply.

“I just came by to say thanks-“

“Yeah, no, I’m done,” House said, surprising himself and his aching leg by getting up and stepping towards the door in a couple of seconds. Which, in hindsight, his leg told him that it wasn’t a great idea, but it was better than the feels-vomit that Jones apparently wanted to punish him with.

“Alright,” she drawled, teasingly. “Good luck with that nice blond nurse, then. Tell him I said ‘hi.’”

The world sucked.

House limped back, slowly, carefully ( _fuck_ _you_ _leg)_ , to the chair, and popped a pill out even though he had just swallowed one. Desperate circumstances.

“Make it quick.”

Jones snorted again and crossed her slender legs at her ankles.

“I got an e-mail from doctor Wilson,” which caught House’s attention so quickly that he fought to avoid sitting up straight like a goddamn puppy.

“Mh,” mumbled House, too out of sorts to say anything more eloquent.

“He said something about publishing an article, asked me about my permission and stuff. Man sounds nervous even on print.”

“Heh,” snorted House softly. “Cannot deny that.”

Silence stretched on for a while, until they both spoke at the same time.

“Will you be-“ “What did you-“

They stared at each other until House motioned for her to go on first.

“’Was asking if you are going to be okay with SHIELD jumping on you for the article.”

Oh.

House wasn’t expecting that.

He wanted to ask Jones if she had assented to Wilson’s request or not, since even though the article wouldn’t name her or the specific circumstances of the injection of the virus, capable hackers or powered individuals could still trace the episode back to her. That would obviously mean making Jones vulnerable in front of her enemies, not to mention endangering her non-powered loved ones.

But no, Jones had to suddenly become awkward, and go all concerned superhero about his and Wilson’s safety, apparently.

 “We’ll be fine Jones, we’re big boys. Was that all you wanted to say?”

House wasn’t equipped with the right emotions to deal with such a situation, and some of this feeling seeped through his tone too late for him to notice. God damn it.

“House…”

“That was all you wanted to say, _right_?”

Thank goodness, Jones relented, taking a deep breath and exhaling it slowly. She pulled her hands out of the jacket’s pockets and reached to her nape to scratch an itch.

“I’m not going to say thank you for curing me since I pay my goddamn insurance so you’re kind of obligated to-“

“You mean Walker pays for it.”

“-treat the, what? No, _I_ paid for my goddamn insurance.”

House studied her furrowed expression.

“Maybe this year or last year, but she paid for it before and she reminds you of it now,” he concluded.

“What-How-“ stammered Jones before she shook herself out of her confusion and massaged her temple in exasperation.

“I don’t want to know. Just, thanks for doing your job I guess-”

House shrugged in response.

“-and for letting me know about Trish’s injuries.”

That stopped him short. He looked up to inspect the scowling woman.

Unlike her usual general scowl, she was scowling directly at him now, which was nothing new, but her expression held an interest and curiosity that House had only seen when he had to usher her out of that very room when he had wanted to inspect Walker’s injuries.

Therefore Jones either knew about the fully extent of Walker’s injuries, but didn’t know about their cause, or she only gleaned the extent of Walker’s injuries, but didn’t know about them accurately, let alone their cause.

In any case, House wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction.

He tried not to think about Walker’s barely held-together demeanor as she confessed how powerless she had felt sometimes, in comparison to her powered best friend.

“You’re welcome. Now get out. Bye bye.”

Jones snorted so loudly that House held a mini funeral in his mind for his ability to faze the woman. Rest in peace.

“Look, I just want-“

“To fish for information that’s not mine to share. You want to know about Walker, you take it up to her. And stay away from shady alleys and people with needles for a while, I don’t want to see Stark’s stupid face for the next decade, at the least.”

“Which reminds me, is it true that you didn’t know about my powers?”

“I don’t see how that’s relevant right now.”

“It’s not. Your pissed tone about Stark reminded me. Trish said something about you not knowing shit about me. You sure don’t bother watching the news or, like, going on the Internet, do you?

I mean, you knew I was powered somehow, just you know all the other stuff, by looking at people or whatever, but you didn’t know which powers specifically because you didn’t know who I was.”

Hearing a slight derisive tone in Jones’ voice, House snapped.

“I don’t bother paying attention to the gold-colored bullshit on the news, and most conspiracy theories on the Internet are just that. Even if I did read anything about you, I wouldn’t have cared to retain the information. Unless they have regenerative powers so strong that they never contract any interesting disease, I don’t care about powered people. I would care only about the puzzles that they might show up with. You provided a perfect example. This time I admit I accepted somebody’s suggestion to get to the point, but I did get to it and I’ll do better next time. Just not so soon. As I said,-“

“You’ve your panties all in an angry twist about Stark, okay, I got it.”

House fought hard against a sputter as Jones watched him closely and smirked, the impudent.

“Just get the hell out of here, Jones. Healthy people give me headaches.”

Jones’ next snort was quite impressive, it eventually turned into a chuckle.

House twirled his cane in his hand and idly cocked his head to the side to check if Jones still had those words scribbled on her inner wrist. Yep, still there.

He scratched his leg lazily and looked at a superhero named Jessica Jones with a penchant for leather jackets, battered jeans and combat boots.

Maybe she went through boots and shoes a lot due to her powered jumping ability..

“Well, and last I wanted to say thanks-“

“Please strike me dead.”

“-for having lied in my paperwork.”

House twirled his cane again, shrugging and looking outside.

It was a beautiful day and House wanted nothing more than a new juicy mystery on his hands and the view from his office.

He should knock that bastard Malfoy unconscious and make a run for it one of these days. Cuddy would have his scalp in 30 minutes, but it would be so worth it.

“I’d decided to come here without telling Mal, I’d left a note for him so he wouldn’t worry,” said Jones’ behind him.

Thigh duly massaged, for the moment, House moved his free hand to the handle of the wheeled cabinet. It was made of metal and the cold sensation on his palm was an echo of the fainter cold on his gloved hand when he gripped his bike’s handle in the morning.

“But when I arrived here I was more out of it than I’d thought, and couldn’t ask you directly to do it.

I don’t do hospitals, but the first time I came here I needed it. Badly. And then you figured out what had happened, and I didn’t see anything come up on the Net. So I came here after I realized they injected me with some shit for powered people. I thought I was going to be coherent long enough to make sure you would have lied for me on the forms, but-“

Jones sighed in exasperation, shifting from foot to foot.

“As I said, I was too out of it. When I came back to, this badass lady came in, saying she was the boss of the hospital or something-“

Shit. Fuck.

“-and that you had ‘taken care of’ the documentation already. Nailed it under some accidental intoxication or whatever.”

“How did she sound?”

“Huh?”

“What was her voice like? Furious, murderous, homicidal,…?”

“Um, kind of tried. Like I imagine anybody sounding after they have to clean up after you, I guess.”

Phew.

Slow and painful torture averted.

Who knew, Cuddy had a heart.

House was going to send her some flowers, or a plant. A plant covered in needles with no actual blossom to speak of that sucks up all the oxygen in the room at 10x speed than any other plant.

“Anyway. I know you didn’t do it for me, you did it for Trish-“

“Wait a minute, I didn’t do it for _anybody_. I just wanted crazy reporters or bloggers or what-the-fuck-ever off of my ward,” he retorted, turning around and looking at Jones to emphasize his point.

Jones only stared back at him with an impassible face, raising her eyebrows to emphasize _her_ point.

“Strange you say that because your boss said that she demanded explanation for my entry form from you-“

Aw shit.

“-and she told me you told her something along the lines of ‘Jones’ lover is human and the host of a popular radio show in the city. You let the public know that Jones got poisoned, you’ll have that woman on your conscience.’”

Fuck you Cuddy.

“And by the way, Trish’s not my lover,” said Jones with a tone that made House think that if pouts had a sound, that tone was that sound.

“Either she’s not your lover _anymore_ or she’s not your lover _yet_. In any case the fucks I give about this topic have officially expired. Thanks accepted, now please for the love of my sanity just go, don’t want that French bastard bitching at me again today.”

Jones huffed, but thankfully moved  a couple of steps towards the door.

Just when House stood up to follow her outside, she turned around.

“No advices on what should I expect about Trish’s injuries? What if the ones who hurt her are out there and I can find them and.. and…”

Jones looked so worried, enraged and protective all at the same time, that House’s shoulders sagged in exasperation at the sight.

“You don’t need to worry about that. If she hasn’t told you, either ask her again or wait. I usually nag people to death to have what I want, but I guess you and Walker must be childhood friends because it’s clear that she’s not one to put up with your shit.”

Jones exhaled loudly. “Yeah, you could say that.” She looked at House with a focused, narrowed gaze.

“I asked her to tell me, she said she’d tell me soon. I just.. All those bruises...”

“Yeah, well. They’re not going to win her any points in a Miss Universe contest but there was no permanent damage. She did good. She can take care of herself.”

Honestly, whenever House recalled that Walker held her own against five guys until somebody noticed the commotion and rushed to help, he was still thoroughly impressed. Sure, she had the element of surprise, and they were piss-drunk, but still.

A tiny, bothersome sliver of respect had lodged itself in House’s chest and made it its permanent residence regarding all things Patricia Walker.

“Mh,” Jones mused. “She said the same thing.”

Then she gave him a look conveying that she knew what shit House was up to, but House saw it for the bluff it was and shrugged it off.

“What can I say, I read minds. Can we get the hell out of here now?”

Jones smirked at him and shook in quiet chuckles as she finally complied.

.

.

.

 

# Visit 7: Their smile

.

.

.

House tried to use the restroom of pubs and restaurants as few times as possible.

This was relatively easily done, since he didn’t like to go out much after work. But after James had had his bisexual epiphany and stopped saying he was going to move out from House’s flat, House was somehow dragged to pre-work or post-work dinners, lunches and even breakfasts by his best friend-turned-partner-in-life on a semi-regular basis.

This meant that when there was a new opening in the near vicinity, Wilson didn’t have to put in the extra effort, since House had become somehow accustomed to the stupid habit of eating together outside of work, and new places piqued his natural curiosity anyway.

Fortunately, the restroom of the new small restaurant was operative and clean, the food was mostly Western African, rich and tasty, and House limped among the throng of people and sat back down in front of Wilson feeling remarkably at peace with the world.

Wilson was people-watching with a strange frown on his face, though.

House followed his gaze but the walking pedestrians and the lazy traffic didn’t offer much.

“What’s so interesting outside?”

Wilson recovered from his trance only for the second it took him to acknowledge House’s return with a small smile. In a restaurant bustling with people, House forgot that maybe Wilson hadn’t heard him sitting down.

“I hope I’m not wrong, but I’ve seen two people we know well by now entering that pub across the street.”

House diligently looked, scanning the long, narrow windows of the pub and the people inside lit by purple and orang-ish colors. At least the restaurant they were in had opted for a normal set of white led lights.

House took a lazy sip of his fizzy drink when Wilson jumped a bit on his seat in surprise.

“There. By the door.”

This time House found them immediately.

Jones and Walker were walking out of the pub, giggling and nudging each other like the stupid in love teenagers that they were. Walker was trying and failing not to laugh and Jones was saying something with a particularly fond scowl.

Then Walker apparently couldn’t hold it in anymore because she burst out laughing, and with the full-on fanfare: the closed eyes, the thrown back head, her hair swaying over her scarf, or at least what was free to cascade from under her beanie.

House could see from here the difference from Walker’s high-end scarf to her mainstream beanie and could immediately imagine the sloppy wrapping that Jones must have done a few days before Christmas.

Out of curiosity, House scanned Jones’ clothes, but they were simply a thicker set of her usual dark clothes with a few hints of purple.

House watched as Jones remained completely mesmerized by Walker’s laughter. Her tiny smirk eventually turned into a smile so fond that House would have never been capable of imaging on the scowling woman’s face. He snorted as Jones hid it in her huge scarf as Walker turned towards her, a hand rendered limp by the laughter swatting at her chest lightly.

Walker said something, Jones rolled her eyes and muttered something back which sent Walker into another fit of giggles, and Jones visibly turned into mush, swaying lightly from side to side with the force of her gloating.

She had her hands in her pockets until a group of three pub-goers turned from the sidewalk to walk into the pub. She and Walker were a bit too close to the door for the group to go smoothly inside, but Jones immediately settled her hands on Walker’s elbow and back protectively, and shot the three a look so deadly that could rival Cuddy’s.

Fortunately the three pub-goers weren’t so drunk as not to recognize an alpha predator when they saw one, and they maneuvered themselves around the duo of women to reach the door.

When Walker’s laughter finally subsided she straightened herself and brushed tears of laughter from her eyes.

Jones instantly retreated her hands, but kept herself glued to the snickering woman, looking still painfully happy about her achievement and trying to hide her expression in her scarf.

There were such idiots in love in this world, concluded House.

“Oh my God, they’re dating,” whispered Wilson in awe.

House pinched his nose and mentally fought himself not to snort and tell Wilson how stupidly obvious it was that Jones and Walker were both head over heels for each other but too stupid to be together (even though the women’s current coziness bode good luck for their near future).

House usually loved telling Wilson how wrong he was, but now that they lived together having the full domestic effect of Wilson’s pout directed solely at him was more exhausting than amusing.

“My guess is that they were together before Jones’ shit with that Kilgrave character. Now they’re not for whatever stupid self-abnegating reason they must be telling themselves,” he said.

There. He didn’t even say the word ‘obvious.’ He was the epitome of self-restriction.

“But… Jones just-“

“That’s a natural reaction to Walker’s recent accident with a band of drunken rapists.”

“Oh my God, is she alright?”

“Yes, and that’s all I’m comfortably to say about the topic since I know more about that woman than I would have ever dreamt to want to know.”

Wilson snickered and House quickly diverted his gaze from the two crazy in love women to take in the sight of his partner’s stupidly endearing, crinkly-eyed smile.

However Wilson was smiling at him with a hint of something, as if he knew something that House didn’t know.

“What?”

Wilson shrugged in reply and said: “Nothing, I’m just glad I gave Jessica your phone number. You’re obviously very fond of them.”

“…You did _what_?”

“Um…”

.

.

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 Fin

 


End file.
